Potassium OVERDOSE on 30 bananas a day….

Easily one of the MOST frequent comments I get when I tell people how many bananas I eat is “OMG That’s TOO much potassium! You will get hyperkalemia!“. For those of you who don’t know, Hyperkalemia is a condition of TOO much potassium in the blood. So seeing I’m the bananagirl and all it’s DEFINITELY time I addressed this. As a carbed up sugar monkey I’m sure you have heard this comment before right? Luckily now you have a banana blog to share with those uninformed folks! I’ve noticed it always comes from people who have no idea about health but are just parroting what they have heard from the mainstream…

We humans need approx a minimum 4800mgs of potassium a day in order to really thrive and the good thing is bananas fit the bill perfectly as they are high in potassium! An average banana contains about 400mgs of potassium. Potassium itself is a very important mineral for the proper function of all cells, tissues, and organs in the human body. It is also an electrolyte, a substance that conducts electricity in the body. Potassium is crucial to heart function and plays a key role in skeletal and smooth muscle contraction, making it important for normal digestive and muscular function.

Who should be concerned about getting too much potassium? Not many people at all. Those folks with renal failure in hospital are really the only ones who need to worry about getting too much potassium in their diets. 99% of the population NEVER have to worry about consuming too much potassium. Of course if you are a silly monkey and continue to slam your kidneys with a high protein diet then you are inviting dis-ease into your life. Time to wake up.

The lethal dose of potassium chloride is 2500mgs per kg of body weight in 30 seconds. As I said earlier there is roughly 400mgs of potassium in one decent sized banana. So someone of my weight (51kg/112lbs) would have to eat approx 318 bananas in 30secs to reach the lethal dose of 127,500mgs of potassium! CRAZY! So my record is 50 bananas in one day, I can eat a LOT of bananas but of course I could never eat that many in 30 secs… let alone a week! Remember this test has to be done in 30secs because if you do it over time your kidneys naturally will excrete the excess potassium. Funny that…

Remember hypOkalemia (low levels of potassium in the blood) is definitely a risk, it can lead to serious illness and discomfort, read some testimonials of this nature HERE. So don’t worry about getting TOO much potassium in your diet worry about not getting ENOUGH.

I suggest you listen to the banana girl and eat up your gold sticks of dynamite. If you need more support on a banana-rich lifestyle than join our 30 bananas a day community of nearly 12,000 banana munchers. We spent thousands of dollars on an IPHONE APP to make your experience on 30BaD that much sweeter so check it out. Oh yeh and don’t forget to Go FRUIT yourself today!

I would have to eat about 8 times this much in 30secs to get potassium poisoning!

P.S – Make sure you bookmark this page under “Potassium” because you are bound to get this question soon if you haven’t already!